


Remnant of an Original Craziness We Can Hardly Remember

by ignipes



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-22
Updated: 2006-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-07 05:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows she wants to ask, and when she only sighs and turns back the pages of her book, he isn't sure if it's relief or disappointment that grows cold in his chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remnant of an Original Craziness We Can Hardly Remember

Lying on her belly on the blanket beside him, propped up on her elbows, she holds her hair back from her face with one hand and keeps the pages of the book from fluttering with the other.

"I'll miss you," he says, curling onto his side and resting his hand on the small of her back. He brushes his lips against her shoulder. She smells like summer: sunscreen and fresh-cut grass, warm skin and flowers.

She turns to look at him; the ends of her hair tickle his face. "It's only a few days," she teases him, but her smile doesn't reach her eyes.

"You must miss her a lot." It isn't a question. He brushes her hair back, tucks it behind her ear. "Were you close?"

"She's been sick for a while." She looks up, away, her eyes following a group of Frisbee players as they sprint across the grass. "Alzheimer's. She hasn't recognized any of us for a long time."

"Oh." And that is barely a breath, an awkwardly exhaled apology.

"I was named after her." She's watching a woman and a puppy now, and when the dog tumbles head-over-heels, tangling itself in its leash and setting the woman laughing, her smile is more genuine. "My grandfather used to tell me the story all the time, how Grandma spent the whole nine months my mom was pregnant saying things like, 'Now, I don't want any of those Heathers or Jennifers. We've got a perfectly good name for a girl in this family and I expect you to use it.' My mom told me she would have named me Jessica no matter what, but she never told Grandma that."

"Oh," he says again, smiling a little bit, rubbing his fingers on the back of her neck and tracing small circles on her shoulders. Her hand has slipped off the textbook and the pages rustle, turning slowly one by one through diagrams of molecules and lines of chemical formulas. The breeze is gentle, wandering, brushing through his hair like fingers, whispering over his bare feet and ankles, hands and arms.

She turns to him again, her expression familiar. "Do you have any grandparents?" she asks, affected casualness and real curiosity, her eyes watching his face carefully.

His hand stills, resting on her back, and he gives a one-shouldered shrug. "I don't know if they're still alive." Because that much, at least, is true. "I remember visiting one grandmother once, but we never went back."

It should have been Christmas, colorful lights and plates of cookies and stacks of presents under the tree, but in the kitchen the Dad and the old lady were fighting, shouting loud enough that even the closed door didn't hide it. When the shouting stopped, Dad stormed out and told them to get ready to go, and the old lady watched from the doorway as they drove away, arms crossed over her chest, her lips turned into a fierce frown. They left the presents behind, but later in the motel room, while Dad was in the shower, Dean emptied his coat pockets of all the cookies he'd taken from the old lady's house: sugar and gingerbread, red and green sprinkles, little red candies and white frosting, carefully arranged into three even stacks on the motel nightstand.

"She and my dad didn't get along," he says.

He rolls onto his back, away from the long, lean warmth of her body. Overhead a jet is trailing white clouds across the sky, and at the edge of his vision palm trees wave and sway. Even without looking he knows she is biting her lip, furrowing her brow in that thoughtful manner that makes him want to kiss the lines away, testing words on her tongue, weighing questions. He knows she wants to ask, and when she only sighs and turns back the pages of her book, he isn't sure if it's relief or disappointment that grows cold in his chest.

"It will be weird." Her voice startles him after silent minutes have passed. "Being in her house when she isn't there. I wonder if it will feel different."

And suddenly she's too far away, the inches of empty blanket an ache between them, and he turns to her again, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to him.

"I'll miss you," he whispers, his lips moving against her hair.

She laughs quietly, squirms closer to his chest. "It's only for a couple of days."

~

_Joy -- a remnant of an original craziness we can hardly remember -- it exists, everything does, without us._

\-- Lyn Hejinian, _Happily_


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